


Silver and Gold

by givemeunicorns



Series: MCU tumblr prompts [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-25 00:16:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2601569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givemeunicorns/pseuds/givemeunicorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky goes to see Peggy after he comes home. She's old and weathered, but so is he, even if it's harder to see. She sees it through, sees right through him, the way she always has.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver and Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Rhinozilla, over on tumblr. Check out my tumblr: givemeunicorns.tumblr.com
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and I make no money off these.

The house is amazing, lavish but not over the top in it's opulence. Low key, classy, but lived in and full of personality. The pictures on the walls show a lifetime, buck-toothed kids who grew into smiling adults. The faces in some of the pictures were familiar, despite their age. Age didn't steal Peggy's beauty, her straight spine, her smile. It took him a moment to place the man in the wedding pictures with her. Gabe Jones. He wished he could remember more about Gabe. He knew he'd liked him, that he's respected him. He remembered that Gabe had a pleasant laugh, remembered that he was one of the smartest people he'd ever met. He remembered Gabe as a tinkerer, taking things apart just to see how they worked. He smiled at the pictures. Gabe's smile had remained the same. This place was one of lived. This place was happy, or it had been.

But the warmth of the place, the familiarity, didn't quell the butterflies in his stomach. He'd wanted to do this for a while, they'd just been waiting for the right time. Sharon had called just after the alarm had gone off. Peggy was having a good day, had told them, one of her best in a while. She forgot a lot of things, but she never seemed to forget what those Nazi bastards had done to her agency. It haunted her too much to be forgotten.

Bucky wandered down the hallways, watching Sharon's back. She was a pretty woman, one with terrifying strength, he could see it in the way her muscles slid under her skin. The girl next door who could defuse a bomb or shot a target with deadly aim. She'd been able to fool Steve, anyway. It made Bucky smile a bit. He liked her. He was glad women like her were allowed to exist in the world, if only it still weren't so hard for them to do so. He supposed she'd learned from the best.

For a moment, he regretted his decision to come alone. Steve visited Peggy at least once a week, when he could. But Steve hated nothing more than seeing people he loved in pain, and Bucky knew this was going to hurt. He knew he needed to do this one of his own terms, needed to come clean, down to the bone, with Peggy while she was still here. He needed to say out loud, the things that made Steve turn a faint shade of green. She needed to know what Hydra did and that he didn't blame her because it wasn't her fault, because lying and infecting what was good was what Hydra seemed to be best at in the modern age. He needed to thank her, for taking care of Steve when he couldn't. He needed to speak to someone who knew, who remembered a tiny frail body with a soul almost too big for it to handle. He needed to know those memories were real.

Sharon knocked of the upstairs doorframe.

“Hey Aunt Peggy, you've got company.”

Bucky swallowed hard and stepped around the door frame.

There an old woman propped up in bed in a night dress, a pair of glasses perched on her nose and cross word book in her hand.

She looked up at him and for a moment, they looked at each in sheer confusion. He'd seen pictures, in the papers, in Steve's sketchbook, in he own hallway, but somehow it hadn't register in his brain, not until she was sitting there in front of him. Her hair was silver, but still lush, falling loss across her shoulders. He'd never seen her hair down before, he'd realized. There had been a time when he'd wanted nothing more. Her skin was deeply lined, from a lifetime of laughing and smiling, of disapproving frowns, and eyebrows knitted in concentration. She was looking at him with brilliant eyes, taking in all of him. He shouldn't look like this, he thought after a moment. They were nearly the same age. Yet here he was, and old man's soul in a young man's body.

Recognition clicked in her eyes shook her head.

“James?You too?” She said gently.

He nodded, giving her his best smile.

“Afraid so.”

She smiled, still bright after all these years. He remembered, if vaguely, a time when he'd have given anything to have her smile like that at him. With affection. She'd looked at Steve like that. So had he. She'd seen it, she'd known. She'd played it close to her chest, because Peggy Cater had always been good at seeing people better then they saw themselves.

“You Brooklyn boys are resilient, aren't you?”

 

Bucky shrugged, offering her an easy smile.

“Musta been the food.”

“Indeed, “ she patted the chair by the bed, “come sit a while. Keep an old woman company.”

Bucky obliged her, hands still stuffed into his jacket pockets.

“Steve wanted to come, but ya know, saving the world and all that. He promised he'd be by to see you on Tuesday. Wanted me to see of you liked your flowers?”

Peggy smiled warmly, settling back on her pillows.

“I do,” She sighed, “He has always so liked to please us, to feel like he can take care of people.”

Bucky leaned back in his chair, tired suddenly. He felt old down in his bones, had since he came back. But being around Peggy, it wasn't so heavy a burden.

“Yeah, he always did. Even when he was no bigger than a minute.”

Peggy chuckled.

“The first time I saw, all skin and bones, I thought Erskin had gone mad. But all you had to do was look him in the eyes to know he was carrying a hurricane in that little body of his. The bigger men laughed at him, thought he'd never make it. But he always tried, always gave one hundred and ten percent. I think some of them were jealous, to be honest. Physically, he wasn't up to their standards, but in terms of resilience, of cleverness, of all the properties beyond the physical, he was so far ahead of the curve. “

“Always was,” Bucky said, heart heavy in his chest, “All the books and pictures, all they see is the man that science made. They don't ever see the little punk from Brooklyn, with a list of reasons a mile long why he shouldn't be in a war, but he just wouldn't quiet. Never knew how to keep his nose clean when he thought someone else might get hurt. Never knew how to stay on the ground.”

She was quiet for a moment, her face not sad, just tired. She reached for his hand, and after a moment, he offered one. He left the metal fingers tucked in his pocket.

“Why are you here James?” she asked gently.

“It's a long story....”

She shook her silver head.

“I know the how, I watch the news. I mean why? I thought I took over something good. I thought I made something worth while. But it was rotten, all this time. I know they took people, people like you, and they hurt them, altered them, held the lives of loved ones over their head. I read about those assassinations. They happened under my watch, but I was proud. I never thought the orders could have come from under my feet,” her voice broke and Bucky let go of her fingers long enough to pass her his handkerchief, “You have no reason to want to see me. If I had looked deeper, maybe I could have found you.”

“No Peggy,” he started, squeezing her brittle fingers, “No one could have found me. Hydra made sure of that. There was nothing to find.”

She shook her head, reached out to touch his face and he leaned into the worn, warm fingers on his cheek. He'd dreamed of loving a girl like her, of getting married to a dark haired woman who was strong as steel and smart as whip and more beautiful than a sunrise. But his heart had belonged instead to a bird boned boy with a bad chest and smart mouth. A boy she'd loved too.

“I forget things, sometimes,” she said softly, “But I can't seem to forget what they did, right under my nose. I can't forget all the times I felt my hair stand up and dismissed it as nerves. Could I have found them? Could I have stopped them?”

Bucky took a deep breath.

“No Peggy,” he answered, pulling his left hand from his pocket, holding it some the light shone of the metal, “If they thought you were catching on they'd have killed you. They probably would have made me do it, made it look like an accident, like Howard and Maria.”

She looked at the metal fingers in wonder.

“It's the whole arm,” he said tightly, “I lost it in the fall.”

“Oh James,” she sighed, with a shake of her head. She knew there was nothing else that could be said, no comfort to be given. Peggy had always been good at taking things as they were.

“You asked me, why I came,” he forced a smile, “I wanted to thank you. For taking care of him when I couldn't. One of the last things I said to him was not to do anything stupid. He never listens, as well know. But you got him through. He loves you Peggy. You kept him together. You never left him. Thank you.”

 


End file.
